Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II (18 May 1920-2 April 2005), born Karol Jozef Wojtyla, was Pope from 16 October 1978 to 2 April 2005, succeeding Pope John Paul I and preceding Pope Benedict XVI. "Saint John Paul the Great", as he was known after his 2014 canonization, was a great reformer and kind-hearted world leader who was known to have helped Polish Jews during the Holocaust, improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and Anglicanism, upheld traditional moral stances, visited 129 countries, beatified 1,340 people, and canonized 483 saints. He was also an outspoken opponent of authoritarianism, assisting in the downfall of communism in Eastern Europe and military dictatorships in Haiti, Chile, and Paraguay.

Early life
Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born in Wadowice, Poland on 18 May 1920, and he studied at Jagiellonian Univeristy; he worked as a volunteer librarian, learned as many as 12 languages, took part in theatrical groups, and refused to fire a weapon for the Academic Legion. During the German occupation during World War II, Wojtyla worked as a manual laborer at the Solvay chemical factory, and he was the immediate family's only surviving member at the end of the war. In 1944, he managed to evade the Wehrmacht as it suppressed an uprising in Krakow, and he helped to protect Polish Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust. In 1946, he was ordained as a priest after years of studying at a clandestine seminary, and he earned a Doctorate in Sacred Theology in 1954.

Papacy
In 1958, Pope Pius XII appointed Wojtyla Auxiliary Bishop of Krakow, and Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of Krakow in 1964. Three years later, he was appointed to the College of Cardinals, and he was elected Pope in 1978, becoming the first non-Italian pope since Pope Adrian VI in 1523. During his papacy, "Pope John Paul II" improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and Anglicanism, and he upheld the church's teachings on such matters such as artificial contraception and the ordination of women. The Pope visited 129 countries during his pontificate, beatified 1,340 people, and canonized 483 saints, emphasizing the universal call to holiness. The Pope's wish was to bring together Jews, Muslims, and Christians in a great religious armada, repositioning and transforming the Church.

Pope John Paul II was a conservative on doctrine and issues related to human sexual reproduction and the ordination of women, but he was an outspoken liberal on other issues; in 1994, he accepted the existence of evolution. He was also an outspoken opponent of apartheid in South Africa, capital punishment, the Iraq War, the Mafia, the Rwandan Genocide (becoming the first world leader to describe the persecution of Tutsis as a "genocide"), communism (he criticized the communist regime in Poland and supported the Solidarity labor union), fascism (he criticized Augusto Pinochet's Chilean dictatorship, Jean-Claude Duvalier's dictatorship in Haiti, and Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship in Paraguay), and homophobia (he opposed same-sex marriages, but argued that gays had the same inherent dignity and rights as everyone else).

The Pope survived numerous assassination attempts during his pontificate. On 13 May 1981, he was critically wounded by the Grey Wolves expert gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot him in the abdomen. The Pope would forgive Agca, visiting him in prison on 25 December 1983; later, it would be alleged that Agca was an assassin employed by the Soviet Union or Bulgaria. On 12 May 1982, just a day before the anniversary of the first attempt on his life, the Pope survived a bayonet attack by the Spanish priest Juan Maria Fernandez y Krohn in Fatima, Portugal. On 15 January 1995, an al-Qaeda suicide bomber planned to dress as a priest and blow up the Pope's motorcade in Makati City, Philippines, but a chemical fire started by the al-Qaeda cell alerted police there whereabouts, and they were arrested a week before they could carry out their plot.

Pope John Paul II died on 2 April 2005 at the age of 84, and Pope Francis canonized "Saint John Paul the Great" on 27 April 2014, together with Pope John XXIII.